


Cold Outside, Warm In Here.

by duckgirlie



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: M/M, Red Dwarf AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-08
Updated: 2011-04-08
Packaged: 2017-10-17 18:51:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/180104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duckgirlie/pseuds/duckgirlie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being the last human alive was just as boring as he'd imagined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold Outside, Warm In Here.

Being the last human alive was just as boring as he'd imagined.

(Okay, he'd never actually imagined what being the last human alive would be like, but if he had, he would probably have imagined it to be boring. And it was. So retrospectively, he was totally correct.)

He's pretty sure how he'd survived had been explained to him at some point, but he really wasn't paying attention, because if you were the last human alive (or at least the last human alive anywhere that was vaguely reachable) it doesn't really matter how you got there, just that you are, and that you are left to spend the rest of your life with only the on-board computer for company.

Cook found out how to put SEACREST on mute after about three days, but it's only off for a day before the silence becomes oppressive and he turns the speakers back on. Because even if that computer really likes talking, it's better then being stuck with only his own thoughts.

One of the things Cook has discovered in his new situation is that his own thoughts aren't as interesting as he thought they were. For a second, he forgives all his friends for all the times they called him boring, but frankly, he doubts any of them are that interesting either, when it comes down to it. It seems charisma is reliant on other people.

After a week of just him and the computer, Cook starts trying to find ways to kill himself. He's never been suicidal, but he doesn't think anyone would fault him in this situation. There is no point in being alive just for the point of it, and he's not sure how long he can stay sane with just himself and SEACREST. If he dies, then SEACREST will be left alone, but it's a computer, he can handle it.

Except it turns out that the Intergalactic Starship IDOL is anti-suicide, and try as he might, he cannot kill himself inside it, and he can't blast himself out the airlock. SEACREST seems concerned for his well being, but Cook really can't tell if that's genuine or something in the design. Or if it just wants someone to listen.

After that fails, he needs to keep himself occupied, and starts reading the ship's manuals. They're really, really huge, and even though he skips over most of the stuff about the engines (as long as they work, that's fine, and if they stop, well then he'll die, which functionally won't be a big change) it takes him another two weeks to get through it.

So he's been pretty much alone for nearly a month when he gets to the section on holograms, and discovers that the ship can project them. Or one of them, at least, but Cook really doesn't care, because if he can even get one person to talk to, hologram or not, it might make the rest of his life slightly more bearable.

"SEACREST?" He addresses himself to the speakers, even though he knows that's not really where the computer hears from. But he needs to talk to something, even if it's not totally real.

"Yes Private Cook?" The computer responds, in the same voice it uses for everything. It sounds like a radio, which is at least slightly comforting.

"Why didn't you tell me the ship could support a hologram?"

"You never asked."

"I didn't know!"

"I didn't think the information was relevant." The computer replies

"You didn't think I'd like some kind of company for the rest of eternity?"

"Am I not company enough?" (And Cook knows it's a computer and doesn't have emotions, but it sounds slightly petulant)

"Not really, no. You're just a computer. And I know a hologram is effectively just a computer as well, but the book says it's 'realistic'."

"Indeed."

"Does that mean it'll be like a real person? Like, with emotions and stuff?"

"It would be a reasonable facsimile of a real individual, correct."

"Can I have one?"

"Maintaining a holographic projection, even if just for the hours you are awake, would result in a .07% drain on the ships resources." SEACREST replies.

"What does that mean?"

"That we will lose twenty-five and a half days of life-support over the next one hundred years."

"I think I can live with that. Just make the hologram." Cook orders.

"Very well, Private Cook."

It's a computer, so it definitely doesn't sigh as it completes the action, but after a strange sound effect the hologram appears in front of Cook. It's a younger man, dark hair, and he looks slightly terrified. Cook steps forward and smiles.

"Hi. I'm Private Cook, and everybody else is dead. You're a hologram. Do you have a name?"

"Um, David?" The hologram responds, and sticks his hand out automatically. Cook's hand goes straight through when he tries to take it, and he shrugs.

"I guess that's part of being a hologram. But as long as you can talk, we're good. C'mon."

After looking around a few times, the hologram follows him into the sleeping quarters.

"Um, what happened to everyone else?"

"There was a thing, and everyone died, or disappeared, or something. I don't know, not exactly, but somehow, I'm left. And the ship won't let me kill myself, and the computer is kind of limited, so you're here now. To keep me entertained."

"Oh. Okay. I won't be very good at it, though."

"It doesn't matter. You could literally do anything and I would be entertained. I've been so bored, I've been reading the manuals. That's how I found out you existed. SEACREST wasn't going to tell me."

"Oh. I'll try?" The hologram smiled gently.

"Great!"

– – –

 

The hologram –David– is way more entertaining then he gives himself credit for, and after a week Cook's completely stopped trying to plan ways to defeat the ship's anti-suicide safeguards.

"What happens to you when I'm sleeping?" He asks one day.

"I don't know? I guess I go off-line for a while." David says, "so it's like I'm sleeping, but in a way that doesn't require projection? It saves valuable power, SEACREST says."

"You've been talking to SEACREST? When?"

"You were in the shower, I think? He says if you're only away for less then fifteen minutes, it's more of a drain on power to turn me off and on then to leave me on, so I stay. You should talk to him, he's interesting."

"He?" Cook asks.

"Yeah. That's what he says anyway. Did you think he was a girl?"

"I didn't think computers had a gender."

"Of course they do. They get to pick though, so that's cool."

"Oh. Okay." Cook smiles. "I won't call him 'it' anymore."

"That's good." David smiles. "I think it upsets him when you do that."

"Wait, he can get upset?"

"Um, yes? He's a very advanced piece of technology."

"Damn." Cook pauses. "I should say sorry, or something. Or get him a present. Can you get a computer a present?"

"You could clean out his fan. He's getting all clogged up lately." David suggests.

"Okay. I'll do that. You'll have to distract him though."

"Cook, I don't think I can distract an omnipresent computer."

"You can try." Cook throws a punch at David's arm. Even though he knows it's going to happen, he still flinches slightly when his fist goes straight through the bicep. He smiles widely at David when he looks over though.

As if being the only human left alive in the whole universe wasn't enough, now he has to go fall in love with an intangible hologram.

– – –

 

He gets along fine, very forcibly not thinking about it, until one day he wakes up and David isn't there. David's always there when he wakes up, so he panics and goes running through the ship in his pyjamas.

"David!"

He can't find him though, and eventually finds himself in the cockpit. Even though he can talk to SEACREST anywhere, ever since he found out the computer has a gender and feelings and everything, he's felt more comfortable talking to him up here.

"How may I help you, Private Cook?"

"Where's David?"

"Routine holoprojecter maintenance. It was in your weekly memo."

Cook never reads his weekly memo, and SEACREST knows that. By now, he thinks it's some weird, passive-agressive thing.

"When will he be back up?"

"Three hours and seventeen seconds."

"Okay. Okay."

He can last that long, he can. Even though he's never been without David for more then a ten-minute shower for the last four months, he can handle this.

"Are you alright, Private Cook? You seem... agitated."

"I'm fine."

Cook sits down at the pilot controls for a few minutes before sighing loudly.

"Private Cook?"

"Do you ever get the feeling that something completely pre-destined has happened? That it was just supposed to be?"

"I'm a computer, Private Cook. Everything about me has been planned down to the last micro-particle. There is nothing about my existence that is not exactly as it should be."

"Okay." Cook answers. "But do you know if it happens with people? I mean, right now, it's like my life is just some perverse joke. I'm the last human left alive, and all I have for companionship are a shipboard computer and a hologram. And the hologram... It's like whoever designed him designed him just for me. Is that what happened?"

"Elaborate?" SEACREST asked.

"Did you design David to be perfect for me? I look at him sometimes, and there's not a single thing I'd change. But he's not real, he's just a made-up projection someone designed in a computer lab somewhere, and if you didn't do that on purpose, then the universe is just trying to make me suffer."

"I can assure you that I had no part in designing David's personality or appearance."

"Dammit." Cook sighs. "So my life is hopeless."

"You should..." If SEACREST could pause thoughtfully, he just did, "You should communicate this with him."

"Why? What could that achieve?"

"I know I may only be a computer, but I have in my database access to all of the created literature of Earth's history. There are repeated references amongst such works to honesty. And if you do not, your situation can only get worse."

Cook sighs again and stands up. "I suppose. Can you get him back on-line as soon as possible?"

"Of course."

– – –

 

He wasn't intending on it, but the second David flickers back on-line, Cook confesses everything.

"I'm in love with you."

David looks shocked. "What?"

"I'm in love with you. And I know it's ridiculous, because you're just a hologram. Not that I mean you're 'just' a hologram, or you're 'just' anything, or you're not real, because I know you are, because I'm in love with you. But I'm sorry, because I don't want this to affect you, and I don't want you to feel like you can't stay around here, because I won't do anything, I promise. But I wanted to tell you."

"You're in love with me?" David asks.

"I know, right? It's ridiculous. And SEACREST swears he didn't design you, but I think he's lying. Because you're completely perfect. I mean, if someone asked me to describe perfection, I would describe you. And it's not possible that that'd happen randomly, so whoever designed your program, whoever invented you, must have known."

"No one designed me." David interrupts him.

"David, you're a hologram. Of course someone designed you."

"No." David says again. "I mean, someone designed a program to project me, but I was real, before... before whatever happened. I went to the technical academy, and I worked on the sixty-third level, and the last thing I remember was packing my screwdriver away before I woke up and you were there."

"I... I don't believe you."

"It's true. SEACREST didn't design me."

Cook stares at David for a second, before stepping forward and trying to wrap his arms around him. His hands only hit his own shoulders though, and he kicks the table over in frustration.

"If it makes it better, I love you too?" David says, and Cook smiles even through his frustration.

– – –

 

The next time he's alone in the cockpit, Cook asks more questions.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"You never asked." SEACREST replies.

"You picked him, didn't you?"

"Elaborate?"

"David. You must have, because coincidences like this don't just happen. There were more then eight thousand people on this ship, and the one you bring back as a hologram is him. Not my roommate, not any of the people I knew when I was alive. Him."

There's a pause that seems like forever until SEACREST talks again. "I just wanted you to be happy."

"I know." Cook pauses. "Thank you."

Some lights on the dashboard flicker in what you could say was a smile, if you were the kind of person who said such a thing.

I don't know how I'll handle it though." Cook says.

"What do you mean?"

"Being around him all the time. Loving him, knowing he loves me, but not being able to touch him? That's almost worse then him not being there at all."

SEACREST paused again. "You stopped reading the manual right after you realised holograms were possible, didn't you?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"So you didn't finish reading the section?"

"No."

Standard holoprojection is only a minor drain on resources. It is however possible to create a tangible holoprojection, though it is a larger drain on resources."

"Do it." Cook has the words out before SEACREST finishes talking.

"It will result in a further 43% drain on resources."

"Do it."

"Are you sure?"

"SEACREST, I'm not going to live for another 63 years. Even if I am, I don't care. Just... Make him real. Fully real."

"He'll get tired. And he'll have to sit down, and sleep, and you won't be able to have him on all the time."

"I don't care. Do it."

"As you wish."

Cook is out of the cockpit immediately, running as fast as he can to his sleeping quarters, where he finds David kneeling on the ground, rubbing his face off the bedding material. The look on his face when Cook runs in is transcendent and he gets to his feet and throws himself at him in an instant.

For a few minutes they just stand there, running their hands all over each other until Cook steps backwards slightly.

"If I had known..." He trails off.

"I know." David smiles. "If I knew you didn't, I'd have..."

"I know."

When they kiss, Cook knows that he's never going to kiss anyone else as long as he lives. And even if there were other options, he wouldn't want to.


End file.
